Memories of the Future
by JanineD
Summary: Rory looks at her life. Ever wanted to look into a crystal ball yourself? Take a look with her. Rory's life. Pulled together in a one-parter. Please read & review!


**Disclaimer: **Come on, look at me, do I look like I own anything?

**Memories of the Future**

Whenever she would sit down at her computer at night her thoughts would go travelling through time. She would dwell on those days gone by, she would remember all those things that had happened in her life so far, sometimes she would just sit hours stare at the screen an reminisce. Occasionally she would fill the screen with words jotting down her memories trying to describe the mental images that were unfolding before here. Every now and then she would get up from the uncomfortable desk-chair and lie down on the carpeted floor, her head on the ground, the legs pushed up slightly. And sometimes, rarely, she would take out pictures. Pictures she had taken of events, of persons, pictures that could only describe a minimal part of her life. Those were only seconds captured of long years. The stuff that was in between, the everyday events that never made it on a film, those were those that really mattered.

It took her 25 years to realize that. You can't capture it all with a camera. You can only capture it in your head.

This came in handy though she thought. After all you carried your head around with you all the time. Whenever you felt like it you could replay the events of your life in front of your inner eye. Sitting in the subway, people around you, you could just space out and travel to another spot in time. 5 years, 7, 10. Everything was possible. You could go anywhere any time. Once she figured that out, she had found a precious gift. Wherever she was, she could leave if she wanted to. She could flee into her own world. Whenever she was sad she could remember the happy times and that would make her happy again.

They were her escape- her memories. Something she held dearly.

This evening she stared blankly at the screen again. Outside the sun was going down, drowning the sky-line of New York City in a deep red, but she didn't even notice. She was looking at her empty white screen waited to be filled with words, but she didn't see it. Instead she was watching herself at her graduation from Yale. Everyone had been there. Her mom with Luke, her dad, both of her grandparents, Sookie and Jackson with their little Davey, Lane and even Mrs Kim had tagged along. All of them were there. She still vividly remembered the look of pride in her mother's face and the tears on her grandma's when she received her diploma. All of them had been proud. And she had been proud for making them proud. She had always done it for them, not for herself. She had wanted to make them happy, had wanted to repay them by taking all the chances they had given her, by making something out of herself, by proving to them that they had loved and cared for her for the right reasons.

She saw herself hugging all of them after the ceremony before she would say her goodbye to Paris who would head to Seattle the following day to live with her boyfriend. A teary goodbye. On both parts. The years had brought them closer together. They still wouldn't admit it, but they cared for each other like best friends.

Rory watched as she walked into her grandparents' house later that day only to be greeted by all of them and many more of her friends and acquaintances. A party thrown for her. One she enjoyed thoroughly because her mom and her grandma had organized it together thus it was the perfect mixture of parties. Everyone had liked it. They had celebrated with her.

Rory sighed. She caught one last glimpse of the Gilmore Estate and found herself thrown backwards 2 years to her mother's wedding. She saw herself walking down the aisle as the maid of honor. Smiling, wearing a dress that she herself made. A light purple, flowing cloth, pulled together in the neck, falling down on her accentuating her figure. She new she looked beautiful, but nothing topped Lorelai. The white wedding-dress was quite classical, but her gleam just turned her into the most beautiful woman on the world. At least to everyone who was there that day. Rory saw Lorelai walking towards Luke smiling with immeasurable happiness, Luke her soon-to-be husband smiling back at her, looking at her, his eyes showing how dearly he loved Lorelai. It was one of the happiest days for Rory, because it was one of the happiest for Lorelai. After all, Rory was apart of Lorelai and always would be. They were inseparable.

Another leap forward this time, but only about a year. Rory at her dorm room, receiving a call. Picking up the receiver hearing her mother's voice on the other end. Her mother's ecstatic voice. I am pregnant. The words that made her scream of delight, words that made her jump up and down. She couldn't say anything for a moment and she could hear her mom jumping up and down on the other end of the line and Luke laughing at both of them. Pregnant. Rory watched herself forgetting the world around her and Paris watching her shocked at the craziness.

Whoop, another eight months. It's the twins' birthday. They are early, but twins usually are. Rory is at the hospital with Luke and Lorelai. The babies are both in their parents' arms. The family is finally completed. This is what Rory feels. The family is completed. The five of them belong together. They are all smiling. They are together. Luke and Lorelai look at each other and then look at her. The love of family. Amazing.

Rory sighs. Back to present. Her family is miles away in Stars Hollow probably eating dinner at the diner. The twins will be in their seats. Two 4 year-olds driving the guests crazy just like Lorelai has taught them. Rory wishes she was there. Here she is alone. Alone with her memories. Back there she doesn't need memories, because she has them. They're her happiness.

Now it's just a few days. The last weekend, Rory spend in Stars Hollow. The walk with her mom around town. You are alone, Lorelai says. You don't have to be alone. Find someone to love, someone to raise a family with. You can't just spend forever like this. You need a family. I am worried.

Rory sighs. Lorelai is right. She is alone. Lonely. Lonesome. She wishes someone was there but there isn't. She wishes she had someone to love. A man, not just the members of her family. When she sees children on the streets she wonders what it would be like having children on her own. When she sees families at breakfast in the restaurant on the corner on Sundays, parents with their children, she wishes she had that. Her own little family.

But all she has are her job and memories.

She got her dream job, but once she got it she was quick to find out it was not her dream. Her dream job but not her dream for her life. Her dream was simpler and didn't require Yale or Harvard. She wanted a family. A husband to love and to be loved by. Children to love and to raise together. The happiness of sharing your life with someone, the joy of sharing happiness. She missed that. She had never actually had it, but she missed it.

A huge leap.

Her senior year. Graduation day. I think I may have loved you.

This feeling hadn't returned. Love. Rory had never loved anyone since then. She had cared, she had had crushes, she had had desire, passion, all of those things but not love.

So many years without it.

She doesn't like the word love anymore, because it's him that's connected with it. No one else, just him. She loved him. No may before that. Simply the three words. She knew back then, but wasn't able to admit it.

Too much hurt.

Too much hurt to let his three words get to her when he had finally said them a year later.

She had been building a wall and he wasn't gonna climb over it.

She wouldn't let him. She wouldn't let him hurt her again. She wouldn't love again and lose again. It had hurt too much.

That was the reason for her no a few months later.

No, like no more hurt. No more love and no more hurt.

People say better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Rory wasn't too sure about that. She had loved and lost and was now lacking anything even remotely close to love. She could have led a different life without love. A life of care and compassion. A life with a family, possibly a husband. Maybe Dean. If it wasn't for love, she might have never broken up with Dean. They might have worked out. He loved her, she cared for him. It had worked two years, why not more? She had tried to reverse it, but that had been impossible at that point. She had tried to trick herself into feelings that she hadn't felt. Everything had been destroyed.

Rory had lost and it had hurt her so much that she wouldn't give love a second chance. At least not this love. She had told him to go away. And he had done so.

Maybe you really have only one love in your life, Rory thought to herself. A thought she had had quite often these past years. You only have one ride and I already used my ticket and didn't even jump on. That's how it felt. She had caught a glimpse of it, but had turned away.

Away to a life in which every path had been laid down in advance. The future was clear to her. A future of stability and success, but without love. Love for her family, but without this other special kind of love. Just like her past had been without love. Memories without this special kind of love. Memories without him. Rory looked at everything again.

Her Yale-graduation – it wasn't there.

Her mother's wedding – he wasn't there.

Her party – it wasn't there.

The twins' birthday – he wasn't there.

Now- it/he wasn't there.

Rory looked at her future again. She saw herself marrying a faceless man, a man she cared about enough to spend her life with, a man to be a good father for her kids, a man who she would never love.

She saw herself in her life. A life she had chosen.

A life with contentment.

A life with contentment but without love, her choice.

A future and a present where love would never be around. She had had it once for a minimal amount of her life and now it was just part of the memories she kept replaying. It would always just be that.

Love to her was and would always be just a memory.

**A.N.: **This popped out of me while I was staring at a blank screen. I don't know I either do fluff late at night or this kind of stuff that I like to call depressing. Definitely not up-lifting. So I am sorry if someone read this looking for fluff. It's just one of those days I suppose. Please excuse that. Anyways, as always I love reviews, especially if they come in numbers!!

Bye, Janine


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